On september 17th, Mines Nancy held a new edition of its now well-established Climate Kickoff Day (“Rentrée Climat”). The concept has remained the same since it began: dedicating a full day to raising engineering students’ awareness of the causes, consequences and possible solutions to climate change. The day’s programme includes morning workshops (the Climate Fresk or the 2tonnes workshop, run in French, English and German), an afternoon talk exploring levers for action at different scales — individual, industrial and political — followed by small-group meetups with professionals working in the ecological transition, who share their experience and career paths with students.
Full Day Programme
- 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM: Climate Fresk or 2tonnes workshop, run in French, English or German, facilitated by students, alumni, teachers and staff trained in previous years.
- 12:15 PM – 1:15 PM: facilitators’ debrief, over a shared lunch.
- 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM: talk “What solutions to tackle climate change? At what scale?”, with two parallel sessions covering individual actions and their order of magnitude, decarbonising industry, and the role of the state and public policy.
- 3:15 PM – 4:00 PM and 4:15 PM – 5:00 PM: “Acting as an Engineer”, small-group meetups (around 20 students each) with engineers and professionals — including an elected official — working on the ecological transition.
A Symbolic Milestone: Over 1,500 People Reached
This new edition marks an important milestone for the school: thanks to the Climate Kickoff programme, more than 1,500 people have now been made aware of climate and environmental issues through the Climate Fresk, the 2tonnes workshop or the Biodiversity Fresk. That figure includes 1,364 students as well as 137 teaching and administrative staff at the school.
This achievement reflects a strong, ongoing collective commitment from the whole Mines Nancy community, year after year.
A Community of In-House Facilitators
At the heart of the programme is the commitment of those within the school who train to become workshop facilitators. To date, 76 students, 6 support staff and 18 teachers have been trained to run the Climate Fresk and/or the 2tonnes workshop — a pool of skills that allows Mines Nancy to run these formats at scale, every year, independently.
Professionals in the Ecological Transition Meet with Students
A highlight of the afternoon, the “Acting as an Engineer” meetups gave students the chance to talk, in small groups, with engineers and professionals working on the ecological transition — from organisations including EDF, RTE, ADEME, TagEnergy, Citepa, AXA Climate, Ecofi, Bayard and Pyronear, as well as a Member of the French National Assembly. Many of these speakers are Mines Nancy alumni, a strong illustration of graduates staying engaged alongside current students.
A Long-Term Commitment
By building climate awareness into the very first year of the engineering programme, Mines Nancy confirms its commitment to training engineers who understand today’s major environmental challenges — and who are equipped to act, whatever field they go on to work in.
